did thet ever respond?
No, they would get back to me in “16-18 working days”. 
So they still have 7-9 days left? 
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It would legitimately surprise me if you got anything clear out of them at all. Hell, it would surprise me if they responded at all!
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And yet, this is just another communication failure by FP. Again! Why are they not willing/capable to learn from the communication desasters in the past?
If they do not plan to upgrade the FP4 to one a newer Android version, they will definitely bring up customers but this will not get any better just by simply not communicating the topic.
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Because they don’t care. There’s no other explanation for how they could let months pass without a word on the FP5 always on display feature being removed, or the constant delays for FP4’s A14 release, or the microphone issues people seem to be having, or the constant delays on FP4 security updates. As the cherry on top they screwed up twice with the latest batch of beta testers. They also haven’t updated the support page either. Q1 2025 ends in 13 days. So maybe they have a big surprise for us right up their sleeve? Or they failed at keeping their support page up to date as well.
… yet they keep publishing news articles inciting people to buy their products, so clearly someone somewhere is writing stuff for Fairphone. Just not the stuff people actually want to read about. I’ve called Fairphone tone deaf before, and this is exactly why.
Any one issue that Fairphone has would be perfectly fine and perfectly explainable given that Fairphone is such a small company. Making a good camera is tough. Making a functioning OS is tough. Sending emails is uh… tough (?).
But when people are complaining about software issues for YEARS and they change the color of the logo and deleting advertised features, that really makes you wonder who’s making these decisions and why. “But the front end guys are different from the OS development guys!”, absolutely but I’ve never in my life had so many issues with a single phone before, and seen so few cares given by the company behind it. And it’s honestly kind of sad, especially since Fairphone is supposed to be… Fair. I bought my FP4 expecting to have a device for the next 5 years at least, and I’ve largely dumped it for my work phone which they gave me against my will at the time. The work phone actually works, you see. Kind of hard to argue with that.
I find myself coming here less and less these days because I find that almost nothing every happens with this company. Their known issues log still has “Erratic proximity sensor behavior in bright light” listed as “Under investigation” even when said issue was an issue since launch. Must be some investigation huh?
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That is the “Final Call” for FP, I guess, as they will loose many of their loyal customers, if they are not changing their attitude towards those.
Then, of course, the search for a replacement for my FP4 is due and that is going to be the hard part.
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Since years people predict FP will loose Customer (and die) and since years they increase the number of sold devices…
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True, but not ‘because’, but ‘although’ 
.
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neither because nor although, but nevertheless/regardless/still/anyway
I agree, because I guess the idea (which is undoubtedly great) behind FP attracts people/customers. The communication skill of the company is definitely not the cause for having more customers. On the other hand it is not affecting the buying decision but makes customers angry after they bought a Fairphone.
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I know, I know…
Thought I’ll try anyway. Between 2 rants about why FP product support is so 
, I figured I should try asking them.
Their autoresponder with “16-18 busines days waiting time” cracked me up. I wrote them down as a clown act.
They would need to do wonders to win us back.
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maybe the dutch have fewer work days per week then we do?
2 posts were merged into an existing topic: Fairphones sold 2013-2023
I would phrase that a little different: Fairphone seems to be driven 100% by marketing, which lives in it’s own reality, and only cares for sales.
Why do I say that? Well:
That’s the marketing way of doing business. Customer support? Irrelevant, the only thing which counts is sales progression, because that’s what your bonus is calculated on.
Which is why I’m afraid we’re not going to see any improvements, since apparently by now the few tech-savvy people have left the sinking ship and marketing has taken over all aspects of the company, including those they have no clue about. 
This means we’ll see big sales events, lots of website redesigns, flashy new logos, but nothing technical anymore. Hey, aren’t we once again late on the (still bi-monthly?) security update of the FP4? It’s not an isolated accident or an exception anymore, it has become the standard operating procedure–“let them eat cake”…
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I generally agree with you and I’ve critisized FP for how they handle the technical aspect a lot in the past, but I can’t agree with that:
As long as @lucaweiss is still at Fairphone (I’m sure there are others, but that’s who I notice in the Kernel mailing list etc.), I’m not giving up hope for the FP4!
To me this feels mostly like a management crisis, we’ve seen the changes in leadership…
No idea what’s going on there, but at the very least I’d expect more resources for the support team before I start recommending Fairphones again.
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Yes, you’re right of course, I have a tendency to oversimplify…
My point is the same as yours though:
Indeed.
The problem is that Fairphone should had been a tech-driven company with some marketing. Not a marketing-driven company with some techies.
Because those techies can be brilliant, if they don’t have any decision power they are only there for damage control.
That’s just one of the symptoms of the general illness, which is the apparent lack of technical focus on their products. By this I mean bug fixes, frequent updates/patches, efficient support, well, everything you need to make sure all customers are totally happy with their purchase, and will become/remain company ambassadors instead of turning into bitter critics.
Sure, some guys at Fairphone are still working their backsides off to stem the tide, but they clearly lack the management support and the resources needed to do a good job, because the situation has been steadily getting worse over the years.
Occasionally there have been (mostly empty) promises, big announcements that they will try to get a grip on their issues, but actually nothing concrete happens, it all keeps slowly going down the drain, and their customer support is the perfect illustration of this, because it’s the visible part of the iceberg, the one all customers can see. 
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